NO REDRESS FOR LOYAL KENAR WEARERS, RETAILERS

Susan ChandlerCHICAGO TRIBUNE

Lincoln Park working women loved them. So did Wilmette soccer moms. Kenar Enterprises' well-priced, fashionable crepe suits, pants and dresses have been a mainstay in women's wardrobes for more than a decade.

But the recent unexpected bankruptcy of Kenar, a Manhattan-based women's apparel-maker, has left many customers and retailers, ranging from boutiques to department stores, in the lurch just in time for the holidays.

"We had one style of Kenar pant we carried every season. Every one knew the style number by heart," says Louisa Shortall, owner of La Colonna, an apparel boutique in Wilmette. "Most of our customers are having heart attacks because they can't get that pant anymore."

Shortall and her staff spent the weekend at the Chicago Apparel Center looking for a replacement brand. Although they found a few things they liked, nothing began to fill the market that Kenar served.

Tracy Vercillo, owner of Mike & Maud's in Lincoln Park, is in the same fix. "Kenar is the only line I've carried every season for the 12 years I've been in business. They were updated, and the quality was perfect for the price point," she says.

Both boutiques had placed orders for holiday merchandise but won't be receiving any. The firm shut down production in September and its liquidation is expected to be complete by the end of this month.

With the benefit of hindsight, it's not hard to see where Kenar went wrong. It created a bunch of Kenar sub-brands that cannibalized sales instead of increasing them. The company was slow to computerize its warehouse. And it spent a fortune on trendy advertising featuring super model Linda Evangelista.

But Kenar did so many difficult things right, like making a pair of pants that fit loads of women for around $125.

Surely that's enough reason for some savvy entrepreneur to resurrect the Kenar brand before all those beloved black crepe pants get shiny.

Do-it yourself: For millions of American families earlier this century, the Sears catalog was a source of everything from underwear to kitchen gadgets to farm equipment.

For some, even their house arrived via the venerable Big Book. Over the years, Sears, Roebuck and Co. offered 450 models of mail-order, do-it-yourself houses with models ranging from a simple three-room cottage for $650 to an elegant nine-room Queen Anne for $2,500.

Four to six weeks after the house was ordered, it arrived by boxcar in pieces complete with lumber, plaster, fixtures and a 76-page assembly manual. When demand peaked in 1929, just before the Great Depression, the company's plant in Cairo, Ill., was shipping up to 250 kits a month.

Many Sears homes can be found right here in Chicago's western suburbs, conveniently situated close to rail lines. There's an especially big concentration and variety of Sears houses to be found in Downers Grove.

Now the Chicago Architecture Foundation is paying tribute to these mail-order residences with an exhibit of photographs and original interior pieces from Sears catalog houses built between 1908 and 1940.

"The American Dream by Mail Order" exhibit, at 224 S. Michigan Ave., is open seven days a week through Dec. 31.

Cold wraps: Just in time for winter's first blast, Hana K, a new chain of luxury coats and rain gear, opened two stores in the Chicago area this week, one on Chicago's Oak Street and the other in Glencoe. Mixing luxury with frugality, Hana K also offers to restyle old fur coats or use the fur as lining or trim for a new wrap.